Andres's Reviews > Keith, A: Three Came Home

Any story of being imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp during World War 2 is bound to be horrifying and compelling, but this one is exactly that---and more, due to the fact that it covers life in a woman's POW camp, a point of view not normally described in POW memoirs (since they're mostly written by male soldiers or civilians)[If I'm wrong about that please let me know!].

Agnes Newton Keith writes matter-of-factly the details of life in Borneo before, during, and after capture by the Japanese, the horrible conditions they (men and women, but in different camps) were kept alive in, the brutal treatment she and others received from the authorities, and the struggle to provide the best care she could for her young son.

Written in 1950, Keith writes with as much honesty as was possible for the time (and probably even beyond), so some details are a surprise to read but for the most part you can tell at times that she was writing around certain subjects or avoided them altogether. This doesn't take away at all, though, since what does end up in the book is still enough to make you wonder how anyone could have survived for all those years in those terrible conditions.

The movie version (with Claudette Colbert) is an interesting if somewhat cleaned up and, at time, overdone version of the book (one scene in particular wasn't factually true but was true to how ruthless the Japanese soldiers were to prisoners).

All in all, the one thing the author wants to get across is how she never hated the Japanese as a people, that she knew war and power changes those involved, and while she hated individuals it never made her lose her faith in people in general. A good lesson to learn indeed.